HTTP Adaptive Streaming (HAS) technology supports streaming pre-encoded video content to client devices such as home computers, tablets, mobile devices and the like. Mobile HAS traffic typically utilizes wireless Best Effort Data connections along with application layer signaling between a HAS client on the mobile device and HAS server to match the video bitrate encoding with the client estimated available bandwidth.
HAS technology is proven to work well over broadband wireline connections with reasonably stable throughput and plenty of bandwidth to spare. Unfortunately, HAS technology is not well suited for mobile video sessions due to fast changing wireless channel conditions and limited bandwidth resources of shared over-the-air links.
From the end user perspective, mobile HAS delivers uneven and inconsistent mobile video quality across multiple end users and within the scope of a single video session. From the Wireless Service Provider (WSP) perspective, mobile HAS tends to overload WSP network (thus reducing the number of HAS users that can be served) without any possibility for the WSP to control, manage or monetize the load, since the decisions regarding the video bitrate that directly affect the corresponding WSP network load are done at the application level without knowledge of wireless channel conditions.
There are two industry approaches to solve this problem; namely, customized application layer Rate Determination Algorithms (RDAs) and WSP rate shaping of HAS traffic. Unfortunately, each of these approaches has proved inadequate for various reasons.